Evaluation systems and methods for coordinating software agents

• US 8,601,530 B2
• Filed: 12/15/2006
• Issued: 12/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: MEC Management, LLC (Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota)
• Original Assignee: The Invention Science Fund I, L.L.C. (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Levien, Royce A., Lord, Robert W., Mangione-Smith, William Henry, Cohen, Alexander J., Jung, Edward K.Y.
• Primary Examiner(s): Mehedi, Morshed
• Application Number:
  US11/640,531
• Publication Number:
  US 20080072277A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,545 Days
• Field of Search: 726/1, 709/202
• US Class Current: 726/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

A device, method, computer program product, and network subsystem are described for associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy or for providing a first agent with code for responding to situational information about the first agent and about a second agent and for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy or for deploying the first agent.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy;

associating one or more cores from at least one of the first mobile agent or the second mobile agent to be configured to simultaneously support at least a suite of applications;

evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy, the evaluating including

(a) requesting the indication of the first security policy;

(b) distilling from the received message at least an affirmative indication as one or more of the indication of the first security policy or the indication of the second security policy;

(c) determining the indication of the second security policy responsive to the obtained identifier of the second mobile agent; and

(d) transmitting a yes-or-no decision of whether to enable a triggering circuit in response to the indication of the second security policy;

deploying at least the first mobile agent remotely via the second mobile agent, and

at least one of the associating or the evaluating is performed at least partially using one or more processing devices.

2. The method of claim 1 in which associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy comprises:

causing the first security policy to include one or more confidentiality policies.

3. The method of claim 1 in which associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy comprises:

causing the second security policy to include one or more integrity policies.

4. The method of claim 1 in which evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

receiving a level indicator as the indication of the first security policy or the indication of the second security policy.

5. The method of claim 1 in which associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy comprises:

configuring the second mobile agent with one or more instructions able to cause the second mobile agent to transmit at least a portion of the second security policy.

6. The method of claim 1 in which evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

deciding whether to enable a triggering circuit m response to the indication of the second security policy.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

deploying at least the first mobile agent via the second mobile agent.

27. The method of claim 1 in which associating one or more cores from at least one of the first mobile agent or the second mobile agent to be configured to simultaneously support at least a suite of applications comprises:

associating one or more command sets from the one or more cores to be configured to simultaneously support at least the suite of applications.

8. A first method comprising:

performing a reception of or a transmission of one or more instructions relating to a second method including;

associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy;

associating one or more cores from at least one of the first mobile agent or the second mobile agent to be configured to simultaneously support at least a suite of applications;

evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy, the evaluating including

(a) requesting the indication of the first security policy;

(b) distilling from the received message at least an affirmative indication as one or more of the indication of the first security policy or the indication of the second security policy;

(c) determining the indication of the second security policy responsive to the obtained identifier of the second mobile agent; and

(d) transmitting a yes-or-no decision of whether to enable a triggering circuit in response to the indication of the second security policy;

deploying at least the first mobile agent remotely via the second mobile agent, and

at least one of the reception, the transmission, the associating, or the evaluating is performed at least partially using one or more processing devices.

9. The first method of claim 8 in which performing a reception of or a transmission of one or more instructions relating to the second method comprises:

performing a reception of or a transmission of one or more instructions relating to evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy.

10. A network subsystem comprising:

association means for associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy;

association means for associating one or more cores from at least one of the first mobile agent or the second mobile agent to be configured to simultaneously support at least a suite of applications;

deployment means for deploying at least the second security policy to the first mobile agent; and

evaluation means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy, the evaluation means including

(a) means for requesting the indication of the first security policy;

(b) means for distilling from the received message at least an affirmative indication as one or more of the indication of the first security policy or the indication of the second security policy;

(c) means for determining the indication of the second security policy responsive to the obtained identifier of the second mobile agent; and

(d) means for transmitting a yes-or-no decision of whether to enable a triggering circuit in response to the indication of the second security policy; and

means for deploying at least the first mobile agent remotely via the second mobile agent.

11. A network subsystem comprising:

means for associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy;

means for one or more cores from at least one of the first mobile agent or the second mobile agent to be configured to simultaneously support at least a suite of applications;

means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy, the means for evaluating including

(a) means for requesting the indication of the first security policy;

(b) means for distilling from the received message at least an affirmative indication as one or more of the indication of the first security policy or the indication of the second security policy;

(c) means for determining the indication of the second security policy responsive to the obtained identifier of the second mobile agent; and

(d) means for transmitting a yes-or-no decision of whether to enable a triggering circuit in response to the indication of the second security policy; and

means for deploying at least the first mobile agent remotely via the second mobile agent.

12. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy comprises:

means for activating the first security policy at least in the first mobile agent.

13. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy comprises:

means for causing the second security policy to include one or more integrity policies.

14. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy comprises:

means for associating the first security policy at least with the first mobile agent and with the second mobile agent.

15. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

means for receiving a level indicator as the indication of the first security policy or the indication of the second security policy.

16. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

means for requesting the indication of the first security policy.

17. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy comprises:

means for configuring the first mobile agent with one or more instructions able to cause the first mobile agent to transmit an indicator of the first security policy.

18. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

means for obtaining an identifier of the second mobile agent; and

means for determining the indication of the second security policy responsive to the identifier of the second mobile agent.

19. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

means for distilling from the received message at least an affirmative indication as one or more of the indication of the first security policy or the indication of the second security policy.

20. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

means for deciding whether to enable a triggering circuit in response to the indication of the second security policy.

21. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

means for evaluating a signal containing the received message.

22. The network subsystem of claim 11 further comprising:

means for deploying at least the first mobile agent and the second mobile agent.

23. The network subsystem of claim 11 further comprising:

means for deploying the first mobile agent remotely.

24. The network subsystem of claim 11 further comprising:

means for deploying at least the second security policy to the first mobile agent.

25. The network subsystem of claim 11 in which the means for associating a first mobile agent with a first security policy and a second mobile agent with a second security policy comprises:

means for causing the first security policy to include one or more confidentiality policies;

means for activating the first security policy at least in the first mobile agent;

means for associating the first security policy at least with the first mobile agent and with the second mobile agent;

means for configuring the first mobile agent with one or more instructions able to cause the first mobile agent to transmit an indicator of the first security policy;

means for causing the second security policy to include one or more integrity policies; and

means for configuring the second mobile agent with one or more instructions able to cause the second mobile agent to transmit at least a portion of the second security policy.

26. The network subsystem of claim 25 in which the means for evaluating a received message at least in response to an indication of the first security policy and to an indication of the second security policy comprises:

means for evaluating the received message at least partly as a roughly contemporaneous response to receiving the indication of the first security policy;

means for receiving a level indicator as the indication of the first security policy or the indication of the second security policy;

means for obtaining an identifier of the second mobile agent;

means for determining the indication of the second security policy responsive to the obtained identifier of the second mobile agent; and

means for transmitting a yes-or-no decision of whether to enable a triggering circuit in response to the indication of the second security policy.